


young, savage things barely worth remembering

by Cirkne



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Jonny Sims I love you but would it hurt you to add a sexy vampire, M/M, Melancholy, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: The idea of Jon’s humanity has lost all meaning. From now on, he is simply a body of instinct and impulse.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	young, savage things barely worth remembering

i.

The spiders come crawling and it doesn’t scare him.

i.

No, before. There’s a before part. Elias’ teeth and skin and what should be his blood but oozes a dark blue instead. What scares him isn’t the turning or the pain it brings, it’s when Elias leaves him that dread fills his veins. 

He’s so young, he thinks. He’s fresh and Elias doesn’t stay around to wait for the turning to end. They’d existed, not exactly friends but sort of around each other, for weeks before this, they’d gotten comfortable with first names and small talk and then, then, then, 

Then the bite. Then the burning. Then-

Then Elias leaves and Jon finds himself incapable of rational thought, or maybe, finally, he is thinking. Now that he has what he thought he wanted, he is beginning to see the consequences. The spiders come crawling. They do, they do, they are everything that ties him back to humanity. The stupid, irrational fear that’s supposed to freeze his entire body. And now- 

He’d asked about it, he did. If he wants to, he can pretend that this is his own fault. For wanting to know but he has always wanted to know. So there may have been too many questions and maybe immortality had seemed like a gift he was desperate to get. All he wanted was time and Elias, cunning, smart Elias, drawing you in Elias, of course, knew this. 

The forever doesn’t start scaring him but the spiders come crawling and neither do they.

i.

This is the part he will remember decades later. The spiders do not notice him and at first he doesn’t notice the spiders and the last bit of humanity he had tried to hold onto leaves him the moment he realizes he is no longer afraid of them.

All of their unblinking eyes, all of their scurrying legs, what he feels now is a sense of familiarity. He, too, is a creature made to hunt. He looks at pictures of himself and struggles to recognize the image that he sees. His reflection is long gone, his eyes have changed colour. How long do you have to go without recognizing your own body before it stops being your body? 

ii.

Martin, who is real the way no one else he knows is, promises that he will always remember Jon as human. They make eye contact after that because the always breaks on his lips and shatters into a million pieces of ephemerality and transience. They break into nothing. They hang in the air that no longer belongs in Jon’s lungs. The always has lost all meaning. 

The idea of Jon’s humanity has lost all meaning. From now on, he is simply a body of instinct and impulse. He craved time to learn everything and now all he craves is survival and blood, of course. Always the blood, the sweet taste of copper in his mouth. He hears it in Martin’s veins. The rushing and gushing, the haste to be alive. 

He thinks of himself, before, of the bags under his eyes and the caffeine he had decided to stay alive on. So desperate for something more. So desperate to read and learn and _know_ everything he could fit into his brain and now the books he’d spent years swallowing like gulps of air sit untouched in his room. He forgets what the urgency of life feels like and tries not to think about seeking out Elias. For answers, or company, or revenge. He doesn’t know and he might never find out. 

ii.

He hears it in Martin’s heartbeat. He can no longer sleep so all he does is listen. And he hears it, only two weeks in. Martin will remember him as human but only for as long as Martin is alive and he will not be alive for long. A human life turns into dust. His blood sings to Jon. His blood would taste like pomegranates. Jon is Persephone, he is destined to give everything up just to have pomegranate seeds break between his teeth and cover his tongue in red. He is destined to lose himself to a man who has loved him in quiet ways, in watching and waiting and tempting him with red. 

He wants to stay, or remember, at least, who he was before this. Martin had never seemed fragile but now he’s all skin and glass and he’s going to leave Jon, he is, no matter how many times he promises not to. Jon’s gotten better at telling when people lie, now that the sound of their heartbeat picking up is always at his disposal. Martin believes his words to be true but what does he know, really? What’s forever to a human that can’t even fathom how long that really is. 

ii.

Convincing Martin is so painfully easy that it makes Jon bitter. Makes his hands shake with annoyance, or anger, he’d expected Martin to be smarter than him, to cherish humanity enough to say no, at least the first time. Jon says:

“Be with me,” and he doesn’t even have to add the forever before Martin is agreeing, his warm skin against the sharpness of Jon’s body and later, yes, the sharpness of his teeth. He doesn’t think about Elias with Martin’s blood gushing down his throat but he wonders about it later. Had Elias felt this too? Not just power racing through his body but something so intense that no words could describe it. He wants to devour Martin before he remembers he’s supposed to turn him. He wants his body to be an extension to Martin before he wants to be human. He hasn’t wanted anything this way before, not even time had been so tempting. Had he known, back then? Was he capable of knowing, as a human, the way he is capable of knowing this now? His thoughts turn into a clot of Martin’s name. 

iii.

He starves himself to be near Martin as he’s turning and wonders how Elias had the strength to leave him, like they’re not bound together. Days after Martin’s blood has stopped flowing in his body, he can still taste pomegranates. He struggles to remember which one of them is supposed to be Persephone and then struggles to remember which one of them is which. Where they start and end, how they differ. He holds Martin through the burning and through his body turning icy cold. He intertwines their fingers and sees Martin’s lips every time he closes his eyes. Parts of him start deteriorating and caving in on themselves to make room for Martin. Room that had already been there, room that he’s saved for years. 

There’s no longer any blood but the way it sings still gets stuck in Jon’s mind. He hums to himself and he hums to Martin and he starts regretting turning him so soon, when he could have fed for days or months or years. He knows Martin would have let him. Kind, selfless Martin. Delicious Martin. All blood and skin and singing Martin. All pomegranates, all want and need and _yes, yes, yes_ Martin. All his Martin. Now and for forever, held together by his blood painting Jon’s lips.

iii.

Martin wakes up hungry. Wakes up starving. He kisses Jon for hours before they go hunting. He touches him like he would have never dared before, all needy, all skin on skin on skin. All pull and haste, and never close enough even when pressed together with no space between them. Jon wants their ribs to fit between each other like puzzle pieces. He wants to drink Martin up to keep him, entrap him, to turn him into parts of his own body. 

He’s supposed to forget everything around him when he feeds but he’s hyper aware of Martin no matter what he’s doing. He wants to rip open the atoms separating them so they never have to be apart. He kisses him with blood in his mouth and wants Martin to devour him just the same, he wants to be human just to feel Martin’s teeth in his skin. 

He craves pomegranates and never finds anything even close. He scrapes his teeth against Martin’s wrists and whines when he can no longer bite through. Martin watches him do all this. His eyes have changed colour, they make his face twist with anger when there isn’t any. Later, this will scare Jon. He keeps trying to bite until Martin pulls him up to kiss him and laughs. At him, maybe, or at the both of them.

iii. 

Time stops existing right after. All he knows is skin and blood and Martin. They feed together, they hold onto each other like letting go will kill them. They exist only for one another. The survival instinct comes second to his feelings. He says _I love you_ and Martin laughs like his words mean nothing, like they’re not enough and he’s right, of course he is. By now they are bigger than love or proclamations of it. They blow air into each other’s lungs like they need it to survive and they do need it to survive. Not the air. Their lips against each other as they feign humanity. All he needs to survive is Martin. He knows this now. He was so afraid of losing his soul when this is everything he needed. Just his lips on Martin’s lips and the dark of the night engulfing them, swallowing them, making them one. 

iii. 

This sustaining on blood and one another lasts for years, or decades. Long enough that people they used to know stop coming round, or existing. Just them two. Forever. 

Forever, 

Forever. 

iv.

Sometimes Martin makes tea. Still, still. It gives him something to do with his hands. It gives him something. To do. Jon found his humanity buried in his feelings for Martin and Martin finds his in old routine, in taking care of others. He brings Jon blood like they don’t hunt together, like they don’t feel hungry at the same time. He buys fruit and watches it rot, as long as it’s there at all. A way of keeping time, Jon thinks, though Martin just likes the smell of citrus. Likes pretending that they’re still normal, that nothing has changed. This house used to be Jon’s and now it just stands. Belongs to both of them, or to no one. They buy new curtains. New, heavy curtains. They hang them on every window. They talk about missing sunshine on their skin, they talk about missing warmth and hold onto each other like their bodies could replace everything they lost. Everything they gave away. 

Everything they-

iv. 

Everything Jon took. 

That’s when it hits him. Martin’s fingers on the parts of his skin that were once covered in freckles and his eyes the color of anger and hate. Jon allowed himself to pretend that they all look like that but it’s time he admits what this really is. There was never any anger in Elias’ eyes and he hasn’t seen his own in years but he can guess that his gaze could never be as intimidating. So sure, Jon has always lived by finding a person to focus on and then giving them every part of himself until they grow tired and he has to be alone or find someone else. Martin, though, Martin had friends before this. Martin made his coworkers go out with him, Martin came back late and drunk on being around people and maybe alcohol, too, sometimes. Martin started conversations with strangers and called people just to check-in. Martin built himself around caring for others, not just Jon. 

iv. 

It’s only sometimes, it’s only in the middle of the day when they haven’t talked for hours because they’ve been busy, because Jon’s been locked in his study, finally able to read again. It’s only when he finds Martin in the kitchen, washing mugs that shouldn’t have been used, water steaming hot on his unfeeling hands. It’s not just anger. It’s regret, despair, it’s resentment. And always, always, worst of all, it’s pity. Martin fills the house with feeling sorry for Jon. He paints their walls with sorrow. 

Back then, he had said yes without thinking. Back then, he had not known forever. He doesn’t know forever now but he knows enough to hate Jon for needing him, he does. He promised Jon his life and Jon, with all his selfishness and dysfunction, had wanted more. 

The fruit keep rotting and Martin never buys pomegranates though he knows, Jon’s told him so many times. There’s a lesson there about not getting what you want, for once, but it doesn’t matter. It’s come too late, he’s already taken everything. He’s hidden sunshine. He’s such a fool for thinking he could ever be Persephone. Martin’s Persephone. Martin’s everything good in the world, he makes flowers grow just by touching the ground, he is spring air before he is a creature of the night and Jon has taken him and made him dirty. 

iv. 

Back then, always had been a lie and now it comes out bitter. It claws its way down Jon’s throat and chokes him until he’s crying, until Martin’s hands are on his body, teaching him to breathe like he needs to at all, like he’s human again, like he’s having panic attacks in the arms of someone he is ready to love. 

And that, too. He had known, for months, years, even at that point that he was ready to be with Martin but he waited to turn to let Martin know. He had built himself to be something for Martin and then he had thrown it away for books and words and knowledge that he no longer cares for. 

He wants to ask Martin how he can still love him but when he thinks about it, he can’t remember the last time Martin told him that he does. They still cling to each other like nothing else exists but he starts referring to it as dependency instead of a relationship in his mind. Is this why Elias left? Afraid of being tied down to someone he turned. Jon wonders if dying would set Martin free but he’s still himself, he’s still selfish. He wants to stay for as long as Martin will have him. He sees the anger in his eyes and kisses every part of his face until Martin laughs or pushes him away. 

iv. 

Jon keeps forgetting to blink and Martin keeps reminding him. Martin’s so good at the human parts, so good at convincing people to go with them. He’s so good. Sometimes he talks to them. Sometimes he asks about their lives and Jon says: 

“Stop playing with your food, baby,” and Martin never, _never_ finds it funny. 

He holds their blood in his mouth. He runs his tongue across his teeth. He thinks about wine. Martin watches him. With irritation and affection. Sometimes at the same time. Sometimes he pulls Jon into his lap and _looks_ at him, makes his skin crawl. Jon thinks about the spiders that came crawling and wonders if Martin is one of them. 

He refuses to share or hunts just for him. He locks him out or kisses him until it’s been so long they have no option but to feed again. 

It’s all the same or it isn’t. Jon imagines himself spinning until he comes undone like yarn and spills all over their bedroom floor. Martin gathers him up in his soft, wonderful hands and throws him out with the rest of the bodies. Then he washes his hands for hours, until every left-over part of Jon is down the drain of a house that used to be his. 

v.

They don’t sleep, or dream, or rest but there’s a moment after every sunset when Jon feels himself wake up. His bones crack with movement, his body uncurls as if coming alive after years of being trapped in cement. Sometimes Martin makes jokes about it, sometimes he’s not in the same room as Jon. They spent so much time existing only to be near each other that Jon stops thinking of the moments when they aren’t together as real. 

He sits on the shower floor and focuses on the water running down his back, on the hair clinging to his neck. He doesn’t think about blood or death. Doesn’t think about-

Martin makes him keep the door unlocked, just in case.

“In case of what?” he asks and never gets an answer. He turns the heat up to the highest it will go and still finds himself shivering. He uses up all the hot water. He apologizes like it makes a difference. He sits on the floor by the shower and talks to Martin through the glass. He exists and wonders how long it will take until he feels alive again or until Martin stops missing being human. 

v.

Martin holds him in place to kiss him and then tells him to leave him alone. Jokingly, softly. He’s started cooking meals for their victims. He’s started playing house, convincing them they’re friends. A risky game. A cruel, awful game and all Jon can do is watch and play his part.

He asks if Martin wants to turn any of them and watches his eyes go someplace Jon is not allowed to follow. 

v.

“Do you hate me?” They’re at the kitchen table. They don’t eat there but they sit, sometimes, when Martin demands they pretend to be human with plates and mugs and silverware. He knows what he’s doing. He knows the obvious answer, it’s such a safe question it makes him angry with himself. Martin blinks and blinks again and shakes his head, not looking at Jon. 

So this could be it. He could take this and keep it and pretend that he doesn’t think about being ripped limb from limb. He could say _I love you_ and mean it the same way he has always meant it and ignore how Martin’s silence in response to his words makes his insides twist into knots, even now, even as an immortal being. He thinks:

Forever, forever, forever, and says:

“Do you wish I hadn’t turned you?” Martin still doesn’t look at him. The kitchen is painted yellow and it has always bothered Jon but it bothers him even more now. He contemplates moving out and fears bringing it up, in case Martin does not want to go with.

The answer, when it comes, does not settle in his mind but finds place somewhere in the middle of his chest instead. 

“I wish Elias hadn’t turned _you_ ,” Martin’s fingers dance on the tablecloth. The pale of his nails against the pale of the fabric. Jon’s decision hadn’t been made by him. The irony of regretting the consequences rather than the actions. Had he not asked about time, had the spiders not come crawling, had he allowed Martin to come to him instead. 

He reaches across the table to hold Martin’s hand in his and when Martin finally looks at him, he doesn’t meet his eyes. What he should say, what has been climbing his throat since the day he bit Martin, gets stuck there, unmoving, as it always does. 

Softly, carefully, he pushes:

“Forever,” past the apology. When Martin laughs, it doesn’t sound happy but it doesn’t make Jon’s skin crawl either.

v. 

He buys pomegranates. He says _I told you so_ when Jon eats them and throws them back up. He didn’t but Jon lets him think he did. 

He buys pomegranates and paints his lips with their red and laughs when Jon can’t stop kissing him.

He buys pomegranates and argues that the yellow of their kitchen walls isn’t that bad but allows Jon to show him listings of houses in the countryside and doesn’t tell him that hunting will become significantly more difficult if they move there. 

He buys pomegranates. He waits for spring. He reads the Persephone myth out loud and hums and hums and hums until Jon kisses the corner of his lips. 

v.

In the middle of winter, they drive out to a beach. They leave their phones in the car and walk into the water with their clothes still on. It makes their bodies heavy, pulls them deeper into the sand beneath their feet. 

There’s moonlight in Martin’s eyes when he says:

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” and pulls Jon down underwater, kisses him with his hands holding firmly onto Jon’s neck. Their lungs fill with water and they refuse to let go. Later, Jon will talk about metaphors and the feeling of drowning like it’s the most romantic thing in the world. Martin will tell him to shut up and then they’ll drive back, dripping wet and laughing and hungry for blood and one another. 

There’s a before part. Underwater, Martin mouths _Always_ and it doesn’t sound bitter or break into pieces. The spiders don’t come crawling and it doesn’t scare him.

**Author's Note:**

> My one job in life is bringing mythical creature aus to every fandom im in. as usual, vampire lore is almost entirely from twilight. 
> 
> title from damn these vampires by the mountain goats


End file.
